Tag: Aravind Kejriwal

Background

Recently, Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) claimed that 5,874 farmers committed suicide in Gujarat in last 10 years. Whereas, the Gujarat government claims that only 1 farmer suicide in Gujarat was due to crop failure. The other suicides were not related to crop failures, and they were due other reasons such as family issues. The farmers do not show a greater tendency to commit suicide than the general population, particularly in Gujarat. Let’s have a detailed look.

Despite being 9% of the total population of Gujarat, the farmers constitute only 7.9% of those who have committed suicide. This is assuming that NCRB has not counted farm laborers under the employment category “farming”. If that’s the case, the condition is even better: despite being 20% of the population, those involved in agriculture in Gujarat form only 7.9% of the people who committed suicide.

Thus, there is a good possibility that the Gujarat government’s claim is right.

Note: Some AAP supporters will try to use above data to claim that everyone, not just farmers, in Gujarat is committing suicide. For such people, here is a list of states/UTs with the highest suicide rates (suicide/population) in India (Source: NCRB)